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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

The True Professional

A part of being professional, at least for a good number of people, is being able to work well as a team. Often the team is a loose concept as people are drawn together in different groups for different purposes. One negative aspect of this is that the inertia of the group is greater than that of any given individual. If everyone on the team wants to try something new every day, you'll rapidly find yourselves in trouble. Not just with one another, but with the guy writing the biggest cheque. In this context 'professional' and 'the way it has always been done' share a lot of ground.

Plenty of other people work in more established or tight knit teams, or even purely by themselves. Within that little brotherhood it becomes far easier to change direction on a whim. Unfortunately without outside input its also possible to be too insular and end up just as resistant to outside pressures as someone from a more nomadic professional life who might be wise to innovation, but knows better than to rock the boat.

In my opinion a lot of the issues and arguments on standards, form factors and methods of working come down to a lack of exposure to other people's methods. We all naturally spend our working day doing what we need to, and its often easier to defend that than to make change.

My Dad has always reminded me that 'professional' doesn't mean you're good, it only means you're getting paid. I've always argued that getting paid is actually the hardest part :) Each to their own.
 
I think each film community tends to define what is "professional" to them. Things are sometime done differently in New York than in LA, for instance. I have worked in Iran with professional production people, and some of the systems and procedures that they use are very odd by American standards, but they make a lot of movies. For the most part, European movies can be made for much less than American movies and little independent features in the States are done all the time by people that make up their own rules because they are limited by their budgets and their experience. I think (with all due respect and admiration for my brothers in LA) that it is too often assumed that the production procedures practiced in LA are the only "professional" procedures and its downhill from there.
 
Many times over the last few years I had a feeling that a lot of people confuse 'professional' with 'the way it has always been done'.
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I think you're just highlighting one of the negative aspects of professionals, an inherent conservatism that creeps in. But it's not a defining aspect, it's not what it means to be professional, it's just a characteristic of some professionals - partly due to the fact that it takes time to become a professional, and given enough time, one develops ingrained habits.

Look, most successful professionals are only successful because they get the job done on a regular basis with consistently high results... and to do that, you have to be a good problem-solver, and to be a problem-solver, you can't be too inflexible. You can't say "well, let's quit and go home because 'x' device didn't work." A professional finds a solution. So to do that, they have to exert a certain level of imagination once they've exhausted their tried-and-true tricks to solve a problem.

So while maybe one does sense a conservative tone from professionals when it comes to new ideas and equipment, keep in mind that these guys make a living by getting things done and done well, otherwise they wouldn't be making a living... so the process tends to weed-out a certain number of closed-minded types, but those that remain, over time, tend to view every new idea that comes along in terms of its practical value to them, i.e. does it work, and does it work consistently, and is it fast.

That sort of thinking tends to make one both simultaneously a continual student on life, looking for new solutions, new tricks in the bag, but also inherently cynical, or skeptical, because time has shown how few of the new things that come along end up staying around.

From a younger person's perspective, that's one of the downsides of getting older.. you know more, you have a long-term perspective on things, you know the history behind things, you've been through several trends and fashions. Sometimes that perspective can fool you because you refuse to leap before you look, missing the boat on a new opportunity that a younger but more clueless person may take advantage of -- and benefit from. But one can't help getting older, and it will happen to the younger person, who will eventually be asked why he is such a stick in the mud when it comes to new ideas by some younger person.

But look, professionals ultimately are defined by the fact that they work and get paid on a regular basis. So if they can't change with the times, then they stop getting work. So it is in their professional interest to keep up with the times, or even better, define the times.

There are a lot of good reasons for "proper" procedures to be followed on a set -- safety for one thing, but also to make problem-solving easier. If someone brings a light to set but doesn't bring the scrim bag that comes with the light, well, me complaining is not about me being old-fashioned or set in my ways, it's about me not being able to immediately drop a scrim in the light when needed, it's about efficiency, and a lack of efficiency can negatively impact creativity. So developing a regular system for how things are done on the set, while it can seem arbitrary to the beginner, is often necessary to be more efficient and thus it allows the artists on the set to be more artistic. "Workflows" are not just for post people.

But yes, there is always a downside to developing a system, any system.
 
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There have already been at least a couple of past Reduser threads on what defines "professional", and the definition is amorphous depending on many factors and what the market is.
 
If you are talking about professionals wanting eyepieces and menu screens to be in certain spots on the camera, it's generally not an arbitrary thing, there is a reason why they like where they are. Look at a modern 35mm Arricam camera, that's not how 35mm cameras looked in 1935. Same goes for ENG camcorders. Things evolve over time due to user feedback.

So when someone radically changes things overnight and some professional complains, it's not because they just want things to stay the same, it's because some of these things that are commonplace evolved over time through the input of many generations of users, so to ignore that can be plain arrogance or ignorance on the part of the manufacturer, and they ignore them at their own peril.

On the other hand, sometimes things only improve when new ideas are tried and tested to either succeed, fail, or be modified. This has always been true as well, it's never a completely linear evolution.

Sometimes in the OVF vs. EVF debate, for example, both sides forget that the other has some good reasons for preferring one or the other, and to some level, it's not like one can completely replace the need for the other.
 
No procedure or tool is "professional."

A "professional quality" result is one where the result is saleable and economically viable product- this is actually a very low standard.

People, their attitudes and understanding are professional. Things like showing up on time prepared and ready to work.

I can produce a professional motion picture with a Canon 7D.

I've seen lots of productions where they couldn't make a professional product with a RED or 35mm.

I've seen great "crane" moves with a camera suspended with three ropes, and truly abysmal ones with a Titan or Super Technocrane.

Procedures are no different.

I've seen shows where they slavishly use a 1st AC, because that is the way its done. Then they set up tripod shots with no movement of camera or in the staging- for the entire production. The 1st AC's primary job responsibility is trivial at that point and well within the skill set of an unassisted ordinary camera operator. (I am specifically ignoring union shows where there are minimum camera crew requirements)

I've seen shows with complex camera motion and fast staging trying to use autofocus and no 1AC- because that's the way its done (which is true for sports, news and documentary!)

Both are spectacular fails.

So, understanding why a procedure, method or craft is used in certain situations is important to being able to employ them professionally in a wide variety of situations.

Its equally important to understand when a 7D is a better tool than a 35mm film camera or a RED One.

Understanding is a key to professionalism.
 
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